New World Notes

Second Life Veterans Miss the World's Wild West Days of Creative Anarchy

When I wondered aloud last week if new SL users remember the virtual world's Wild West years of creative anarchy over a decade ago, many old timers replied by more or less sighing, "Those were the days." For instance, reader "Mondy":

I can remember a time when griefing by self-replicating objects was fairly common, and although it was annoying, it was also an event. People would COME to a sim to see sometimes hilarious flying...appendages? Or whatever infantile creations had been brought into being. Sure it was stupid, but it was also a talking point and often amusing. You also got to see the Lindens arrive to clean up the mess if the sim didn't crash and the owner couldn't deal with it themselves.

Or reader "Jackie", who fondly recalls what we might call an ethical, White Hat Griefer:

Knew a guy who did fun griefting such as turning the sky from blue to green a smiley face moon. He loved combat sims and making folks he knew fly three Sims away for kicks. Crashing Sims and hurting others wasn't cool with him.

I remember those days well and miss them too! I'd also distinguish types of griefing:

Top 6 Posts from Last Week Including a Virtual World Co-Working Space for Real Work & Facebook's Risky Gamble on the Future of VR

• By Making Facebook ID Mandatory, Oculus Is Taking A High Risk Gamble On VR’s Entire Future As A Consumer Product
• How To Create A Reddit-Style Upvote/Downvote Karma System For Virtual Worlds That Can't Be Abused (Too Much)
• Tech Worker Quarantined At Home Builds Co-Working Space In Second Life
• Apple Gets Deeper Into Metaverse Business With Acquisition Of Spaces
• Valve's Profit-Making Approach To Virtual Reality More Sustainable Than Facebook's Loss Leader Play
• How Many SLers Remember Its Era Of Epic, System-Wide Griefing?

Weekend Shopping Tips from Shocking Wonder’s Virtual World Lifestyle Blog

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

“Shades of Blue” is a recent post on Shocking Wonder’s Virtual World Lifestyle blog that just totally sucked me in, evoking Santorin, the town on the edge of a volcano in the Mediterranean where all the buildings are white with blue trim. It has the bright Meditteranean sunshine and the lush bougainvillea that adds pops of brilliant color. The scene is filled with details and her list of contents is extensive from her body to her pose and the background buildings, the beach, furnishing, decor, and food. To keep this short, I will just note the table and items on it, for all the details, go check out the blog.

• table: Nutmeg. French Cafe Table / 2
• chairs: MINIMAL – Greek Island Gacha 09
• parasol: dust bunny . beach day . closed parasol

On the table:

• 05 MADRAS Mango Delight Juice Bottle 
• 12 MADRAS Trojan Blue
• 06 MADRAS Mango Delight Diced Decor 
• 09 MADRAS Mango Delight Fresh Mango Se 
• :::ChicChica::: Whisky #9 
• ..::THOR::.. Tile Coaster – Maiolica
• ..::THOR::.. Terracotta Wine Glass

Her most recent post is going to appeal to the fisherfolk, see below.

Seeking New Sponsoring Media Partners for New World Notes!

Above: Clickthroughs on an ad for a longtime New World Notes media partner over the last 12 months

Interested in becoming a Media Partner with New World Notes, the longest running and most read virtual world blog with a primary focus on Second Life and its many spinoffs and related technologies? According to Similar Web, we typically attract 120,000 visits a month (sometimes more, sometimes less), and more key, we get our partners results: Above are the clickthrough rates to the Second Life Marketplace listing of a media partner.

Who's an ideal media partner for New World Notes? Basically any brand or organization that NWN readers would be interested in, including:

By Making Facebook ID Mandatory, Oculus is Taking a High Risk Gamble on VR’s Entire Future as a Consumer Product

I’ve been thinking a lot about Robert Scoble’s guest post last week, in which he argues that Facebook and Apple are the only companies that can take VR mass market -- and therefore, that Oculus’ upcoming requirement of Facebook ID for log-in is a necessary evil to make it mainstream. (Or to soften the blow with corporate speak, a “strategy tax”.)

I don’t dispute Scoble’s analysis; in fact, insiders tell me it’s more or less what Facebook has in mind. But there’s a small problem with Facebook’s plan:

Oculus Quest -- by far its bestselling HMD -- has a tiny install base. Just barely one million. I don’t know if I can fully convey how small that is, but here’s one data point: While it took the Quest over a year just to sell one million units, the Nintendo Switch sold nearly 11 million units during the last holiday shopping season

There’s no evidence that the Quest/Quest 2 market can be expanded much further any time soon. And by insisting on Facebook ID log-in now, when the consumer base is so minuscule, the company runs the risk of totally alienating VR enthusiasts and the development community, further hurting its chances at mass growth.

And for VR developers, there’s really nowhere else to go. Because of the Quest’s small market, VR developers stand little chance of making money from their games -- unless they get funding and promotional help from Facebook: 

“If you want to develop in VR, you have to kiss Oculus or get out,” as a well-known game designer and passionate VR advocate told me recently. “I saw that coming and bailed. Facebook is giving [some developers] money but in the long run that just makes it harder for those not getting the cash. It is the problem when the sales don't cover development -- so quality is propped up by funding, which then makes those not getting funding compete against those hyped up games with no chance of making money.”

What about Vive and Steam VR? Or Sony’s PSVR, which actually has the largest install base for a premium HMD, with over 5 million sold? 

SL Flickr Pick: Roseleiya Creates Serene Images in the Virtual World

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

It’s not Monet’s “Water Lilies” but it’s a beautiful Second Life homage by Roseleiya whose photostream is like a stroll through a museum. The music she chose to accompany the picture is ideal. Dustin O’Harlloran’s “We Move Lightly” which was new to me. Her pictures are deceptively simple with few elements, but every one of those elements perfectly considered. 

More beauty ahead:

How To Create a Reddit-Style Upvote/Downvote Karma System for Virtual Worlds That Can't Be Abused (Too Much)

Writing about Second Life-based drama last week, many readers didn't like my suggestion that a Reddit-like upvote/downvote-driven Karma system would work relatively well to improve the user community. Sample:

The karma system would literally be used as a tool to create an even more toxic locale on any type of forums, Reddit or non-Reddit and would be akin to the old IGN Vault Boards as there would be Nazi Moderators and their favorites; as well as those who would get banned from there just because they said one thing wrong or didn't kiss anyone's ass...

The hive-mind would dominate a Reddit-like karma system, as far as governance goes... Imagine, how banal events such as "crappy lil club drama" would play out if there were a Reddit-like karma system. You would see everyday disputes devolve into disciplinary action.

And maybe that's all true, but let's start with a salient point:

Reddit's karma system works. Yes it's often abused (as is any social system), but it remains utterly instrumental to making Reddit one of the most popular sites on the Internet.

The other point: There are relatively simple ways to minimize abuse of a karma system while rewarding great content and users and encouraging them to keep coming back to the world.

Here's how:

Tech Worker Quarantined at Home Builds Co-Working Space in Second Life

"I built an office for those of us working from home during the pandemic," Annabelle Chimpton recently announced on Reddit, "complete with music, coffee, and a TV for breaks." Replete with a fire pit, garden, and koi pond, it's very much the kind of cool and casual co-working space that tech workers in Santa Monica and other hubs are missing nowadays -- except that this one only exists in Second Life: CliChimptonck here to teleport.

Working from home herself, Annabelle  wanted a place that recaptured her pre-pandemic office environment. "I think the big thing I've missed is the random moments of 'watercooler' talk throughout the day so hopefully this can help replicate that," as she explains.

Unveiled just a few days ago, people also working from home have been showing up to work in her virtual space from all over, she tells me:

Yeya Zuta Turns Second Life Screenshots Into Surreal & Witty Art

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

With Yeya Zuta, I almost feel as though I have found the Magritte of Second Life. Their love of the absurd is enlivened with the kind of wit one would expect of the great surrealist. Like Magritte, the lighting is matter-of-fact, the focus being the absurdity that is intended to provoke our thought and attention. 

More thought-provoking images below.

New World Notes Notes New World, New World

Sorry not sorry for the title for this news:

My preview of New World, Amazon Game Studios’ forthcoming massively multiplayer online PC game, would be limited to eyes-on, thanks to my stone-age potato of a gaming laptop. This is a game that touts 50-on-50 smackdowns, after all. Even if a new MMO sounds like as much of a 2012 enterprise as my rig, New World is trying to meet 2021 expectations of gameplay and environment...

New World’s preview event — which is open to those who have pre-ordered the game, or signed up for the beta prior to July 9 — gets going Tuesday at noon ET. Progression from this beta (and prior alphas) will be wiped prior to the game’s launch. That is coming sometime in spring 2021; it was delayed (for a second time) last month. In July, the developers said they wanted to respond to player feedback from the game’s alpha tests, and develop more mid- and end-game content, which the War represents.

Another preview video (one of many popping up everywhere) above. Ironically New World is not actually the kind of world New World Notes usually notes -- no robust content creation tools that I can see, for one thing, and shouldn't a world called New World be more about exploring the new world, not killing other people new to the new world? -- but given that it is called New World, I feel obliged to note it nonetheless.